Milan to Marlow on one tank of diesel. A story of friendship and fuel economy. Dom Joly and Rufus Hound embark on a journey of discovery, to see if they can make it back from Milan to Volvo HQ in Marlow, with just one tank of diesel in the car.

20 November 2009

A microsite at discoverfordfocus.co.uk features an interactive giant plasma ball with the vehicle inside it. Visitors to the site can watch people interacting with the plasma ball in Barcelona. They can also touch the dome with their cursor to create orange light waves flowing from the Ford Focus.

Volvo has launched an online contest challenging people to virtually drive around the world

Bit by bit (or byte by byte), carmakers are connecting their vehicles not only to Internet-based services but also to owners’ smartphones. The latest is Mercedes-Benz, which announced a new telematics platform Monday that beefs up its navigation system with traffic and weather information and lets drivers lock or unlock their cars using an iPhone or BlackBerry.

December's L.A. Auto Show is only a few weeks away, and carmakers from around the world are gearing up for the event, which promises to be a bit livelier than last year's rather somber proceedings. During the show, the Los Angeles Design Challenge competition will be held, showing off the latest from the minds of some of Southern California's best design studios.

Consider the state of affairs when viewers tuned into the Super Bowl in February: Banks had failed, a stimulus package still hadn't been announced, and unemployment was surging toward 8%, up from 4.8% the year before. Escapism was the order of the day, and most advertisers played right along, with brands like Coke and Pepsi offering saccharine happy-happy joy-joy visions that jarred with the bleak reality.

Email offers the automotive industry a fantastic channel through which to build loyalty with consumers and add value to the car-ownership and brand experience. Further, with consumer spending dropping and marketers’ budgets being cut, it’s more important than ever to acknowledge the importance and effectiveness of the email channel and how it fits within the organization’s overall marketing efforts.

FRANKFURT: Audi, the luxury automaker, is hoping to greatly increase its sales levels in Brazil, Russia, India and China over the period to 2015, and has set ambitious expansion targets in each of these key future markets.

11 November 2009

Alfa Romeo has launched a social media campaign to promote its MiTo model to a younger audience.The Fiat-owned car brand is running a competition on Twitter to create word of mouth around its campaign for the MiTo car.

A recent article published on business week in the US stated that Ford Motor Co in the states will spend 25% of its marketing dollars on digital media next year, more than twice the amount spent by the US industry.

Even though overall Certified Pre-Owned sales are down this year, a number of automakers — including Hummer, Hyundai, Infiniti, Jaguar, Kia, Land Rover, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Subaru — experienced double-digit sales increases between Jan.-Sept. 2009 compared to the same time period last year.

Earlier this year the Digital Marketing group at Mercedes-Benz USA, a Razorfish client, looked to maximize the online performance of its CPO program. Already reaching the target audience through a highly targeted media campaign, the next lever to pull was creative. Without incremental budget to support a heavy creative rotation of monthly offers, the Razorfish media team looked to third-party dynamic creative partners.

What marketing technique could be more immersive for consumers than literally immersing them in the world of a campaign? With the help of the latest augmented reality technology, brands like Wise Foods, Kia Motors, and Nestle are reaching out to younger demographics and letting them reach right back.

05 November 2009

Another month has flown past so it's time to check out the latest and greatest online ads. The lucky winner of Flashtalking's Campaign of the Month for October is... (and remember to nominate for November). Air New Zealand Personality Allowed (Albion/Walker Media) - great use of targeted Google-maps and sequenced content.

It was tricky this month as all the shortlisted ads were very good, well worth you checking out: Ford Kuga (Futurecom interactive AG / Mindshare AG) Very high-impact takeover, great example of Flashtalking's screen grab morph solution to pass an image of the live web page into the creative. www.flashtalking.com/showcase/fordch_webcapture/